The Seventh Seal and the Seven Trumpets (Revelation
8-9)

Notes from Ray C. Stedman:

ANGELS OF DOOM:In our studies in the book of
Revelation we have been following the unrolling of the seven-sealed
scroll which the Lamb of God won the right to open by his death
upon the cross. The title of that scroll is "The Mystery
of God," and when we come to Chapter 10 we will read that
that mystery -- exactly how God is going to bring about universal
peace and joy to a sinful, angry, and murderous world -- is completed.
God is doing that very thing with individuals even today. Many
of you here have experienced the peace and joy which God gave
you in the midst of the struggles and trials of your life. He
does that by grace, by the offer of total forgiveness of sin.
But to a world that rejects grace, God can only bring peace through
judgment. That is what we are seeing in this book. Six of the
seven seals have already been opened when we come to Chapter 8,
and we have watched the waves of successive judgments roll across
the earth. We learn from the prophet Daniel that these cover a
seven-year period in the last days of this age. Under the seals,
it is covered from one point of view, i.e., what happens when
man is allowed to have his own way. All God does is to take away
the restraints and let human evil find wider expression. It is
limited slightly (to a fourth of the earth), but it finds far
greater expression then it does today. That brings us then to
the seventh seal which is now opened to us, in Chapter 8:

When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven
for about half an hour. And I saw the seven angels who stand before
God, and to them were given seven trumpets. (Revelation 8:1-2
NIV)

It must indeed have been an embittered and chauvinistic commentator
who first suggested that this half an hour silence proves there
will be no women in heaven! That, of course, is not the reason
for it. This word about silence reminds us of the prophet Habakkuk's
cry, "The Lord is in his Holy Temple; let all the earth keep
silence before him!" (Habakkuk 2:20 KJV). This silence comes
as a dramatic contrast to the shouting of praise and the playing
of harps that has been going on in heaven up to this point. Millions
of angels, hosts of redeemed humans, and other heavenly creatures
have been crying out before the throne of God, and singing praises
to him. But now suddenly everything ceases. When the seventh seal
is opened there is total silence. It is a most dramatic pause.
It reminds one of that moment of silence just before the last
great "Hallelujah!" in the Hallelujah Chorus of Handel's
Messiah. This is the silence of mystery, a silence of intense
anticipation of what is about to happen. Our good friend, Earl
Palmer, in his commentary on Revelation says, "It communicates
in a dramatic way the full and awesome authority of God. Everything
must wait for his kingly move."

That move begins, as this account tells us, with seven angels
being given seven trumpets to sound. It is all part of the opening
of the seventh seal. These are impressive angels indeed. We are
told they are the angels "who stand before God." That
calls to mind the story in Luke 1:19 of an angel sent to Joseph
to tell him that Mary will be the mother of a child. The angel
identifies himself as "Gabriel, who stands in the presence
of God," (Luke 1:19 NIV). These seven angels are probably
archangels, and they are given an extremely important task in
the sounding of these trumpets. They doubtless include Michael
the archangel, who appears also in the book of Daniel. In fact,
the apocryphal book of Enoch, an ancient book which is not part
of our Bible, gives the names of all seven angels. They are Uriel,
Raphael, Raguel, Michael, Sarakiel, Gabriel, and Phanuel. Notice,
their names all end in "el," which is short for the
name of God. These are "angels of God," powerful angels,
who are given these trumpets to sound. Before they blow the trumpets
another dramatic scene is recorded.

Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at
the altar. He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers
of all the saints, on the golden altar before the throne. The
smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints,
went up before God from the angel's hand. Then the angel took
the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it
on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes
of lightning and an earthquake. (Revelation 8:3-5 NIV)

Many of the expositors of Revelation identify this angel as
Jesus himself. The reason is that in the Old Testament, while
Israel is marching through the wilderness, they are led by a great
angel called "the Angel of Yahweh," or, "the Angel
of Jehovah." Most Bible scholars feel that it was an appearance
of the pre-incarnate Christ, i.e., the Son of God himself, leading
his people through the wilderness. Since Israel is in the forefront
again in this book of Revelation, then it would make sense that
the Angel of the Lord appears again in connection with that nation.

The New Testament also teaches us that Jesus is a great High
Priest for his people. The book of Hebrews and a reference of
Paul in Romans 8:34, tell us that Jesus is now a High Priest who
"makes intercession for the saints," (Hebrews 3:1, et
al, Romans 8:34 KJV). This is clearly what this angel-priest
is doing here. He takes fire from the brazen altar, adds to it
incense, along with the prayers of the saints, and offers them
on the golden altar of incense before God. It is a wonderful portrayal
that tells us much about the function of prayer.

Do you ever feel that your prayers are not even heard, let
alone answered? According to this, the prayers of saints, especially
intercessory prayers (those we pray for others), are like fragrance
in the nostrils of God. They delight him. He smells in them a
remembrance of the character of Jesus, the One who gave himself
for others. As these prayers are mingled with the incense provided
by the great angel himself, (who may indeed be Christ), they delight
God. But, more than that, they move God to action. If burning
incense is symbolic of the prayers of saints who are imploring
God to act -- then returning that fire to earth is a symbol of
answered prayer. In other words, we have now come to the time
when God will answer the prayers of his people. What is the result?
We read, "there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes
of lightning and an earthquake." You may remember that in
4:5 these were the first sounds that John heard coming from the
throne of God in the opening scene in heaven. He heard "flashes
of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder," (Revelation
4:5b NIV). Here an earthquake is added to that as well. These
sights and sounds mark the close of man's age, and the opening
of God's kingdom upon earth.

In Chapter 11, at the last of the blowing of trumpets, we learn
that when the seventh angel blows his trumpet the same sounds
are heard and an angel proclaims that, "the kingdoms of men
have become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ," (Revelation
11:15b). The scroll is then fully unrolled. These sounds come
at the end of each of the series of seven: The seals, the trumpets,
and the bowls of the wrath of God. Thus we learn here at the opening
of this seventh seal, when the great Angel casts the fire of God
back upon the earth, that the day has come when God answers fully
the prayers of his people.

There is one prayer that the people of God in all ages have
been praying that has never yet been answered. It is clear from
the Scriptures that this prayer was prayed by the saints of God
from the dawn of the race. Adam probably prayed it when he left
the Garden of Eden. Noah undoubtedly prayed it when he came out
of the ark into a new world after the flood. Abraham surely prayed
it as he looked for a City yet to come. King David prayed it,
and, when we come to the New Testament, all the apostles, including
Paul, prayed this prayer. It is the prayer that Jesus taught his
disciples to pray: "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on
earth as it is in heaven," (Matthew 6:10, Luke 11:2 KJV).
That prayer has never yet been answered. We have not seen God's
kingdom visibly on earth. Invisibly it is present in the church
and is seen in the rule of God over the affairs of men, but visibly
the prayer has never been answered. But when we come to the end
of these three series of judgments we will find that the prayers
of men are at last to be fulfilled.

Let us come back to the seventh trumpet which probably begins
what Jesus called in his Olivet Discourse, "the great tribulation."
In Matthew 24 he says, "For then there shall be great distress
[tribulation], unequaled from the beginning of the world until
now -- and never to be equaled again," (Matthew 24:21 NIV).
It is the very acme of judgment.

At Revelation 8:6 we come to one of the most difficult sections
of the book to interpret. There is much debate as to whether these
judgments are literal, reflecting some physical judgment upon
the earth, or symbolic, a picture of something else much worse.
My own view is that they are both! This is how God frequently
works. He pictures something invisible by means of a literal event.
For instance, the sun is, of course, literal. It is a great shining
star that warms our earth and keeps the whole solar system working.
But it is at the same time symbolic, and is so used throughout
Scripture. We refer to it in everyday life as a symbol of light,
knowledge and truth. Fire, too, is literal. You can burn yourself
badly with fire -- but it is also symbolic of torment, torture
and judgment.

The prophecy of Joel in the Old Testament opens with a vivid
description of a plague of locusts that came upon the earth and
ate up every green thing. Joel describes them in dramatic and
accurate terms but his description soon becomes a description
of the invasion of a great army from Babylon that will soon come
into the land. Israel, throughout its history, used literal trumpets
to indicate public warning of imminent action. So, through this
series of seven trumpets we are hearing God's public announcement
of severe judgment that is about to take place. These judgments
are not something new in history. God has often acted in judgment
upon men. Even today he is speaking to us of terrible moral failures
by using actual literal events.

Take, for instance, the drug scourge which is such an enormous
problem in our day, especially among our youth. Drugs destroy
the mind, burn out the brain, and turn people into worse than
beasts and animals. What is this scourge saying? Not only is it
literal, but it is symbolizing the terrible danger of self-indulgence
-- the philosophy of self-fulfillment that is widely advocated
in the media today. Self-indulgence, like cocaine or crack, lures
us on by giving a sense of fulfillment and immediate pleasure.
But the user is drawn on into a continuing orgy of self-indulgence
until he finally finds himself living in the suffocating atmosphere
of total self-centeredness. The drug scourge is the visual aid
that God has given our generation to make us see what is happening
to us at the root of our being. How blind we are to it! Jesus
once rebuked the Pharisees of his day because they could interpret
the signs of bad weather ahead, but they did not know how to understand
the times.

The AIDS epidemic is a very literal, frightening plague that
has come upon us. It is consuming life after life in many countries
today. I talked the other day with a doctor friend who has been
recently in Africa. He told me that 50% of the women and 30% of
the men in Uganda have AIDS. That country is facing almost total
annihilation because of this fearful plague. We know how widespread
it is here. It is literal, but what does it also symbolize? Just
as AIDS robs people of their immunity against other infections,
so, the Bible says, indulgence in sexual promiscuity robs us of
any defense against the widespread theological and moral errors
of our day. That is why people go for strange cults and strange
teachings on every side today. They are easy prey because their
moral defenses have been torn down by sexual promiscuity. They
have no moral immunity left. In Paul's letter to the Ephesians
he lists certain wrongful sexual activities, and says, "Because
of such things God's wrath comes on those who are disobedient,"
(Ephesians 5:16 NIV).

The terrible scourge of abortion today, this awful murdering
of unborn children, is obviously literal. The whole country is
being torn apart over this issue at this present hour. But what
is it saying, what is it picturing to us? I think it pictures
the moral sacrifice of our children, the loss of a whole generation
of young people who are not being taught the truth about God.
Watch them on the streets and in the ghettos of our great cities.
Look into their listless, dull eyes. We are losing them. Like
the ancient people of Israel, we are throwing our children into
the vast burning yaw of the god Molech, deliberately sacrificing
them to our self-centeredness. Abortion makes it horribly visible
to those who wish to see. Now let us look at these trumpets and
see what they portend.

The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail
and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down upon the earth.
A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were
burned up, and all the green grass was burned up. (Revelation
8:7 NIV)

This is very similar to the seventh plague that fell on Egypt
during Moses' confrontation of Pharaoh, when hail and lightning
came upon the whole land. Here, it is mingled with blood. This
is not a new phenomenon. Scientists have recorded other times
when red rain fell from the sky. They never could explain it fully,
but it actually left great puddles of water that were as red as
blood. Here is the same plague hitting the earth. It brings terrible
destruction of the natural world. Notice that the plagues of the
first four trumpets all fall on creation. This is, in a sense,God's
judgment upon a race that destroys its environment. He is saying,
in effect, "You want a destroyed world -- then you shall
have it." This is fully in line with his methods of judgment.

But the destruction is not only literal, it is also symbolic.
It is teaching something invisible to the eyes of men at that
time. As we have already noted, the earth is used in Scripture
as a picture of Israel, the intended model nation under God. Here
is depicted a judgment upon Israel, both on its leaders (the trees),
and upon its people (the grass). The prophet Jeremiah and other
prophets of the Old Testament call attention to a time when God
will judge his people Israel. Let me read such a prediction from
the prophecy of Zephaniah. God says:

"At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps and
punish those who are complacent, who are like wine left on its
dregs, who think, 'The Lord will do nothing, either good or bad.'
Their wealth will be plundered, their houses demolished. They
will build houses but not live in them; they will plant vineyards
but not drink the wine." (Zephaniah 1:12-13 NIV)

Jeremiah calls this, "the time of Jacob's trouble,"
(Jeremiah 30:7 KJV). That is the effect of the first trumpet.
The second one follows:

The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like
a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third
of the sea turned into blood, a third of the living creatures
in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed. (Revelation
8:8-9 NIV)

The first trumpet judgment attacked the earth but this attacks
the sea. A great blazing mountain is seen falling into the sea.
Perhaps it is a volcanic eruption. It may be Mount Etna on the
island of Sicily which vulcanologists say is ready to blow its
top, like Mt. St. Helens. Many scholars feel that the sea on which
this judgment falls is the Mediterranean. Or perhaps it is a meteor
falling out of space into the ocean. At any rate, the sea literally
becomes blood red. Once again, this is not unknown. Every now
and then the papers report what is called a "red tide"
which appears in the sea and turns large areas of the ocean blood
red. A tiny marine organism, red in color, multiplies at such
an enormous rate that it makes the water look like blood. This
plague destroys many of the living creatures in the sea; the ships
are destroyed and the commerce of the ocean reduced by a third.

But if it is literal, it is also symbolic. The symbol of a
great mountain blazing with fire is that of a kingdom aflame with
revolution. Jeremiah, for instance, describes Babylon as just
such a mountain. He calls it a "blazing mountain" which
is the destroyer of the earth (Jeremiah 51:24-26). It probably
pictures, as we gather from other Scriptures, the rise of what
is popularly called "the revived Roman Empire," the
ten-kingdomed coalition of Western Europe and the Western allied
nations under the antichrist, which conquers the other nations
of the earth. The sea is used frequently as a picture of the Gentile
nations of earth.

Again, it is limited to one-third. Notice the repetition of
this word "the third" all through the series of trumpet
judgments. Under the seals the limitation was one-fourth of the
earth. That is very meaningful. Four is the number of human government,
and under the seal judgments God is saying that he uses human
government to limit the onslaught of the four terrible horsemen
of Chapter 6. Human government still retains some vestige of restraining
power during those days. But here, even that is gone, and under
the trumpet judgments only God himself restrains. Three is the
divine number and this is declaring that only God's mercy and
God's grace limits these awful judgments to one-third of the earth.
Now we come to the third trumpet,

The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing
like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on
the springs of water -- the name of the star is Wormwood. A third
of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters
that had become bitter. (Revelation8:10-11 NIV)

This great star which falls into the rivers and the fountains
of earth, is very likely a comet which breaks up when it enters
the atmosphere and scatters itself throughout the earth, falling
into the rivers and springs and poisoning them with what is probably
a form of radiation. We have had, perhaps, a kind of a foregleam
of this and a note of warning from God, in the terrible atomic
accident that happened in Russia some years ago. It occurred at
a city named Chernobyl -- and Chernobyl is the Russian word for
Wormwood!

I read in the paper yesterday that a new comet has been spotted
in the skies. It has been given the name "Austin," and
will become in April the brightest object in the night sky. These
comets flash into our solar system unexpectedly at times. No one
knows where they come from or when they will arrive, and a new
one has now been spotted. I am not saying it is the great star
predicted here, but it indicates the suddenness by which such
comets can appear.

At the same time that this physical event takes place, it will
also symbolize something to happen in the invisible realm of man's
internal life. Rivers, of course, symbolize masses of people moving
in the same direction -- whole peoples who are caught up with
one idea and moving like a river does in a predictable direction.
The fountains denote the sources of moral or philosophical leadership,
and a star is in Scripture the symbol of a prominent leader. It
appears that some great personage, widely recognized as a leader,
suddenly reverses his policy -- he "falls" in that sense.
Many people are embittered by this and set against one another,
resulting in widespread moral death. That is exactly what will
be described later in Revelation under the rule of the Beast that
comes from the earth, as we will see. We will find a similar "star"
in Chapter 9 when we hear the fifth and sixth trumpets of judgment.
I will leave it at that for the moment. The fourth angel sounds
as recorded in Verse 12:

The fourth angel sounded his trumpet, and a third of the
sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars,
so that a third of them turned dark. A third of the day was without
light, and also a third of the night. (Revelation 8:12 NIV)

Without preliminary comment I would like to read to you our
Lord's word, recorded in the 21st chapter of Luke, where Luke
gives his account of the Sermon on the Mount of Olives. There,
Jesus says:

"There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On
the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring
and tossing of the sea. Men will faint from terror, apprehensive
of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be
shaken." (Luke 21:25-26 NIV)

That clearly is a reference to this same event under the fourth
trumpet. But not only is it literal -- the sun and the moon and
the stars are, for one reason or another, darkened and fail to
give their light for much of the time -- but it also symbolizes
something. Sun, moon and stars are used in various places in Scripture
to typify earthly authorities. The highest, of course, is the
king or president. He would be portrayed as the sun, and those
under him would be as the moon and the stars. They symbolize a
hierarchy of authority. But what does this darkening mean, metaphorically?
It pictures light withdrawn from the authorities of earth. They
are morally darkened and no longer display moral judgment. They
are not governed by any sense of ethical restraint but become
characterized by increasing deceit, treachery, merciless cruelty
and a total lack of justice. Yet by the grace of God this darkening
is still limited to one-third. Some restraint of evil is yet possible,
but only by the sovereign grace of a sovereign God! Verse 13 now
warns us of an eagle who comes to declare that there is much worse
yet to come. If you have a King James text, it reads "angel,"
but the better manuscripts use "eagle" here.

As I watched, I heard an eagle that was flying in midair
call out in a loud voice: "Woe! Woe! Woe to the inhabitants
of the earth, because of the trumpet blasts about to be sounded
by the other three angels!" (Revelation 8:13 NIV)

Three great disasters are yet ahead, and these "woe"
judgments are to fall upon the "inhabitants of the earth."
That is not a very accurate translation. It is, literally, "those
who make their home on earth." It does not mean people who
live on the earth, because there are many of those, as we have
already seen, who will be redeemed. But these judgments fall upon
a moral class, those people who live only for earth and its advantages,
who are merely concerned for this life and care nothing about
the life to come. Someone has well described them in this bit
of doggerel,

Into this world to eat and to sleep,
And to know no reason why he was born,
Save to consume the corn,
Devour the cattle, flock and fish,
And leave behind an empty dish!

Do you know people like that? All they seem to think about
is eating, sleeping and meeting their needs. They have no thought
for the purpose of life or of any meaning to their own existence.
What we are told here is that these last three trumpets, two of
which we will take up in Chapter 9, give us insight into the full
extent of the moral disaster that the first four have brought
upon the earth.

We have seen in each of the series this division into four
and three. In the seals, you will remember, there were four horsemen
who rode through the earth, and then we were given, under the
next three seals, insight into what was going on behind the scenes,
as it were. Here there are four trumpets that sound, and then
we get a deeper insight in the last three of the terrible impact
of these awful judgments. In the bowls of wrath that will come,
we have again the same division of four and three. These series
seem to reflect the three common degrees of comparison. Everyone
knows that there are three ways to indicate increasing value,
meaning, or even material size. First, it is "big."
That is the positive, the comparative is "bigger," and
the superlative is "biggest." With reference to evil,
there is "bad," "worse," and "worst."
This is what we have in these series: a climaxing of judgment,
a crescendo that ends at last with the pouring out of the bowls
of the wrath of God, the worst of all.

If I took a poll of this congregation this morning, and asked
you how you felt after hearing this, most of you would say, I'm
sure, that you feel uncomfortable. Why is that? Why do we feel
uncomfortable when we read of judgments like these? Let me share
these words on that theme from Eugene Peterson. He says:

We do everything we can to make light of judgment. We use
every stratagem we can find to avoid dealing with the consequences
of sin. But God will not let us off. He will not indulge our
inattention. He will be taken seriously. In a pause between trumpet
blasts an eagle cries its warning. However practiced we become
at tuning out sounds that we do not want to hear, including the
sound of God's displeasure at sin, God finds new ways to penetrate
our defensive deafness. The eagle cry catches us off guard.

What we are seeing here in the judgments of the last days is
really nothing new. It is simply commonly experienced penalties
for evil increased in amount to an incredible degree. God has
been sending judgments like this all through the history of mankind.
There have been volcanic eruptions, meteors falling upon the earth,
red rain from the skies, poisoned waters, etc. All these terrible
disasters have struck before, but now they grow to a climax. Yet
we must not misunderstand them, for they are for our own good.
I list for you five effects of judgment upon us since we are all
being judged in some degree, more or less. Hardships, trials and
difficulties are all a part of the judgment of God upon human
evil, and we all experience it. First of all, judgments frighten
us. They are intended to. They are sent to arrest our attention.
They chill our blood. They alarm us. They scare the living daylights
out of us. Like children at a horror movie we are fascinated by
them but we want to hide our eyes from them and not look fully
at them. That is the first effect of judgment. It arouses fear.
Then, because it terrifies us, judgment also sobers us. How many
people in the Bay Area immediately rearranged their priorities
five minutes after the earthquake hit on October 17? We heard
many testimonies during that time of people saying, "I'll
never take life as lightly again. That taught me a lot. I began
to see what is really important." That is also what judgments
do. They help us reassess our lives. They change our priorities.

C. S. Lewis well says that fear or pain or judgment is "God's
megaphone to reach a deaf world." And so judgments correct
us. They force us to face unpleasant facts about ourselves. We
do not like that. We do not like to be told that we are not perfect.
We know we are not, but we do not like anyone else to say so.
We are uneasy at having these things pointed out. But judgment
strips away our illusions. It restores us to reality. We begin
to think accurately, clearly, as God thinks. We plan more carefully.
We live more thoughtfully. That is why God sends judgment. And
fourth, judgment humbles us. We begin to see that we are really
not in control. We do not run everything about our lives. We are
not autonomous creatures. We are not little gods, capable of making
anything we want to of ourselves, as the media keeps trying to
tell us. We are not in charge. We see how foolish we have been
in the past, that we have made many mistakes when we thought we
were right. We begin at last to welcome guidance, to listen to
others, and especially, to seek out the wisdom of the Word of
God. Finally, judgment reassures us. It comforts us. It answers
Habakkuk's great prayer, "In wrath, remember mercy,"
(Habakkuk 3:2). We learn that God does not like judgment either.
He calls it, in Isaiah 28:21, his "strange work." He
keeps it as brief as possible. He gives ample warnings before
it gets unbearable. He sends anticipations of it, forceful reminders,
that this kind of thing can happen so that we might pay attention
and act before it gets out of hand.

All this supports the view that the Bible gives everywhere
of a loving God, "slow to anger and plenteous in mercy,"
(Psalm 103:8 KJV). Is it not strange that people who do not read
the Bible very much almost invariably say, when you talk about
judgment, "Well, the God I worship is a loving God; he would
never do anything like that!" My friend, it is the very love
of God that makes him judge! God must judge in order to eliminate
evil once for all from his creation and bring about the world
of universal blessing which men have longed for throughout all
of human history.

Last night I spent a quiet evening at home. The rain was falling,
and that is always a comfortable sound. It was warm and cozy inside
and quiet and peaceful without. There was no danger threatening
me or my family. I spent a delightful time listening to good classical
music. I had just been working through this passage of Revelation
and it suddenly struck me how wonderfully protected I was. If
you and I were living in Calcutta we might feel much closer to
these scenes in Revelation than we do here in California. If we
were living in a ghetto of one of our great cities, where violence
stalks the street right outside the door and you dare not go out,
we would identify much more readily with these judgments. How
wonderfully God has spared us, protected us and watched over us.
All one needs to do to turn earth into the scenes we have here
is to take the restraints off human evil for a little while. It
could be like this tomorrow! But God has spared us, watched over
us, loved us, guarded us, believers and unbelievers alike. How
thankful we all ought to be for that! And how ready to hear and
heed the eagle's cry!

ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE: Chapter 9 of Revelation presents
the judgments of the fifth and sixth of the seven trumpets which
were introduced in Chapter 8. These two trumpets are also identified
as the first and second of three great "woes" that will
come upon the earth. I want to stress that the judgments of this
book are real. They are terrible, horrible disasters, and there
is both a literal and a figurative dimension to them.

I received an unsigned note in the offering last week which
I will read to you exactly as it was written: "Kindly see
to it that your sermon presentation is more entertaining and concise."
I am sure that note was sincere and well-intentioned. Probably
many of you feel the same way about my messages. I, too, strongly
sympathize with those sentiments. I wish there was some way to
make these messages more entertaining, and, although I struggle
to make them concise, I probably could use some improvement in
that area. But I remind you that we are dealing now with what
the Old Testament prophets called "the great and terrible
day of the Lord." I find it difficult to make such messages
amusing or entertaining. It strikes me that to attempt it would
be somewhat analogous to hiring a comedian to entertain the witnesses
at a public execution! This is not entertaining material, I grant
you, but it is true! And we have to face unpleasant truth at times.

Some of you may also be having trouble with the timing of these
various events of Revelation. I have been asked, "Are these
seals and trumpets and bowls of wrath chronologically sequential,
or do they occur simultaneously?" I must admit that that
is difficult to determine. As we have seen all along, the Apostle
John is given this vision of what is to take place in the last
days, from the vantage point of heaven. Thus he is looking at
these events from the standpoint of eternity -- and the one great
characteristic of eternity is that there is no time there. In
heaven there is no sense of past or future. Everything is present
-- now! That is why it is so difficult in this book to tell exactly
when events occur when they are brought into time.

We are seeing here, then, not chronology but degrees of intensity.
It is as though God keeps probing deeper and deeper into the events
of the last days. The judgments of the seven seals give us a quick
trip through this seven-year period that Daniel identifies as
the last days. The trumpets, however, return as it were to a section
of the last week and give us a different facet of judgment. That
is what we are looking at in Chapters 8 and 9. When we come to
the bowls of the wrath of God we will see still greater depths
of earth's agony, but just how to fit it all into a time sequence
is difficult. This is made still more confusing by the fact that
certain break-off periods -- intermissions I have called them
-- which focus on events of special interest, are occurring during
this time. We have already seen one of these in Chapter 7 and
we will find others as we go on in this book. We could liken the
events of Revelation to a missile launching at Cape Canaveral.
The countdown proceeds normally and seems to be nearing the end,
when suddenly there is a break. The countdown ceases while something
is checked out or repaired, and then it resumes right where it
left off. That is also somewhat the structure of this book. Perhaps
that image may help you in understanding this. Now in Chapter
9 we arrive at the fifth trumpet, presented in the first six verses:

The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that
had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key
to the shaft of the Abyss. When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose
from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky
were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss. And out of the smoke
locusts came down upon the earth and were given power like that
of scorpions of the earth. They were told not to harm the grass
of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did
not have the seal of God on their foreheads. They were not given
power to kill them, but only to torture them for five months.
And the agony they suffered was like that of the sting of a scorpion
when it strikes a man. During those days men will seek death,
but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude
them. (Revelation 9:1-6 NIV)

This remarkable passage begins with the falling of another
great star, not into the sea this time, as we saw under the third
trumpet, but onto the earth. Again, this probably speaks of something
literal. It is perhaps a great meteor falling from the skies.
Many times in history such meteors have fallen to earth and created
some degree of havoc and chaos. But here a second star falls.
Yet the text clearly indicates that this is not just a literal
star, it is also symbolic. It pictures an individual who is given
a key by which he opens up the gateway of hell, the Abyss. When
once Jesus visited the shores of Gadara on the Sea of Galilee
he cast a legion of demons out of a man. The demons begged him,
"Do not send us into the Abyss [the same word as here ],
but allow us to go into the great herd of swine that are feeding
on the hillside," (Matthew 8:28-32, Mark 5:1-11). Jesus permitted
them to do that, and the swine immediately ran over a cliff and
plunged into the sea and perished. It is a strange story, but
it portrays the fear demonic beings have of being cast into this
great Abyss.

We learn from other Scriptures that demons have already been
incarcerated in this Abyss. The book of Jude tells us that there
are angels that have been "kept in darkness, bound with everlasting
chains for judgment on the great Day," (Jude 6 NIV). Apparently
we have come to that Day here for as this strange individual opens
the Abyss, out of it comes a great cloud of locusts looking like
smoke that fills the sky. Once again we are being presented with
something literal and symbolic at the same time.

One summer when I was a boy in the state of Minnesota, we were
visited with a great plague of locusts. They came in a cloud that
actually darkened the sky. I remember hearing them descend onto
the standing fields of grain, and it was like listening to a hail
storm. As they munched away at the vegetation, the noise was like
a rushing river. They destroyed everything in their path, leaving
the farmers with no crops at all that year. It is something like
this that John sees when this fifth trumpet blows. But along with
this literal visitation of locusts, invisible demons are also
released from the very pit of hell into the earth. We must ask
ourselves, who is this powerful personage who is permitted to
unleash the powers of hell? This links closely with what we saw
under the third trumpet when the other great star fell. He was
identifiable as a powerful political leader who would change his
policy in the midst of the week and thus embitter whole classes
of people. If that was a political leader who thus "fell"
then here we have a Jewish religious leader who turns apostate,
and, by that means, introduces demonic forces upon the earth.

I believe he is Jewish because of the clues that are given
in this passage. These demons were told not to harm "the
grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people
who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads." Clearly
grass, trees and plants represent people, as we have already seen
in Chapter 7, and they specifically symbolize Israel. Yet there
is a certain group of them -- 144,000 that were sealed of God
-- who are guarded and protected from this demonic control of
human thought. The other people are not allowed to be destroyed
but only tormented for a period of five months. What we are doubtless
seeing here is what Paul refers to in his Second Thessalonian
letter as an important personage who arises in the last days and
whom he calls "The Man of Sin" who sits in the temple
as God and claims the worship of Israel, and of the whole earth.
In other words, here is that great antichrist of the last days,
foretold in many Scriptures. His propaganda is described for us
here under the figure of a "scorpion's sting." That
will be the effect of his teaching upon those who believe it.
It is like a scorpion's sting, producing great agony of mind and
heart.

I was in Vietnam in 1960 and one afternoon I lay down to take
a brief nap. As I did so I noticed something run across the top
of the doorway. It ran down the side of the casing and onto the
floor, and there I saw that it was a black scorpion about six
inches long. It stood up on its rear legs, defiantly staring me
in the face, with its tail curled up over its head, ready to sting.
I looked around for something to hit it with, but it ran off and
disappeared. I never saw it again, but I was never comfortable
in that room! I asked my Vietnamese friends what would have happened
to me if it had stung me, and they told me I would have suffered
incredible anguish for 24 hours. Nothing would have relieved it,
they said. A pain killer would only have made it worse. I would
have had to endure it for 24 hours and then the pain would gradually
disappear. That is a scorpion's sting, and it is used here to
picture a terrible mental torment.

Years ago I had a home Bible class here in Palo Alto, and a
young woman who attended told me that when she and a companion
had been in Alaska teaching they looked for something to while
away the long winter months. They began to play around with a
Ouija board, thinking it was just entertainment. But that led
them into reading horoscopes and astrology. After several weeks
of this she began to hear voices in her head at night, insisting
that she get up and write obscene, filthy words on a piece of
paper. She could get no relief until she got out of bed and wrote.
She would have to write for several minutes, and then she could
go back to bed and go to sleep. But it kept getting worse and
worse. The sessions grew longer and longer until she would actually
have to sit and write for hours before she could get any sense of
relief. It became an almost unendurable anguish. This was still
going on in her life in California and she asked me what she could
do about this. I read to her the Scriptures on demonic possession
and prayed with her. We did this on several occasions, and I am
happy to announce that she was delivered from this obsession.
I have seen her since and she told me that it was a permanent
deliverance. But this is the kind of mental anguish described
here -- this horrible torment that seizes upon people's minds
who open the door to the occult and unknowingly permit the intrusion
of demonic forces into their lives. That delusion is metaphorically
described in Verses 7-11:

The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. On their
heads they wore something like crowns of gold, and their faces
resembled human faces. Their hair was like women's hair, and their
teeth were like lions' teeth. They had breastplates like breastplates
of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the thundering
of many horses and chariots rushing into battle. They had tails
and stings like scorpions, and in their tails they had power to
torment people for five months. They had as king over them the
angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek,
Apollyon. (Revelation 9:7-11 NIV)

This describes the nature of the propaganda that this leader
will unleash upon the world and the effect of it upon human minds.
It is given, of course, in symbols, as is much of the book of
Revelation. These are not difficult to interpret. "Crowns
of gold" speak of something authoritative. As people hear
the teachings and claims of this charismatic, leader he impresses
them as having great authority and power. "Human faces"
speak of intelligence. This teaching will appear reasonable and
will seem intelligent, making its appeal to the mind. "Women's
hair" describes that which is alluring and attractive. Many
will believe the propaganda because it appears to offer much personal
advantage.

But it will also be like "lions' teeth" -- a symbol
of that which is penetrating, cruel and frightening. That is what
begins to happen as those who follow this teaching succumb to
its delusion. They find it becomes cruel and vicious. "Iron
breastplates" speak of callousness of heart. The demonic
powers will be heartless, without mercy. Once the torment begins
no appeal can relieve it, there is no way of escape. And it will
come with an overpowering sound. That speaks of something which
is widely popular. There will be tremendous peer pressure to believe
this teaching, so much so that it seems irresistible and overpowering.
The "stings in the tails" speak of the terrible aftermath,
the mental torment that follows this awful teaching.

Then we are told clearly that it is all under the leadership
of an invisible demonic king, the very angel of the Abyss himself.
This, of course, is a figure for Satan. This whole account depicts
an infusion of demonic forces upon the earth under the leadership
of Satan himself in these terrible last days. The world saw something
like this in the days of Hitler and the Nazis. People today who
see films of Hitler's frenetic harangues to the German people
are amazed that anyone could believe the things he said. It is
still an unexplainable phenomenon in history that a whole nation
could be carried away by the strange teachings of this deluded
and demented man. But it was a mere fore gleam of what is coming.
Paul warns young Timothy in his first letter, "In the latter
days some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits
and things taught by demons," (1 Timothy 4:1). Clearly this
has been foretold in other parts of Scripture.

We are seeing fore gleams of this in our own day. In the '60s
there seemed to be a terrible breakthrough of evil into the world.
Strange, demonic teachings were introduced and people began to
throw overboard long-obeyed customs and moral standards. We saw
many revolutionary movements affecting men. Perhaps even now we
are seeing much of the same thing in the delusions of what is
called the New Age Movement. There are some things that are good
and attractive about it, but much of it is a return to occult
practices, and to being controlled by spirits that are supposedly
teachers of truth. We are being told that the masters of the minds
of men of the past are now available also to us through this kind
of teaching. But when one begins to follow such teachings, it
has a terrible effect. It leads at last to sheer despair and mental
torment. It is, of course, not what is being described here for
these powers are greatly limited in our day, but there is something
worse of the same nature coming, something that will be permitted
wide expression upon the earth. In Verse 12 we hear the sixth
trumpet giving its sound:

The first woe is past; two other woes are yet to come. The
sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice coming from
the horns of the golden altar that is before God. It said to the
sixth angel who had the trumpet, "Release the four angels
who are bound at the great river Euphrates." And the four
angels who had been kept ready for this very hour and day and
month and year were released to kill a third of mankind. The number
of the mounted troops was two hundred million. I heard their number.
(Revelation 9:12-16 NIV)

John now hears a voice that comes from the horns of the golden
altar. That altar has already come before us in Chapter 8. There
we saw the altar of incense on which was offered before God the
prayers of the saints who were then on earth. An angel took the
fire from the altar and threw it back on earth and fire and judgment
followed. What now happens under the sixth trumpet is an answer
to the prayers of the saints of that day.

We have already been told what they are praying. A great crowd
of martyrs are heard crying out, "How long, Sovereign Lord,
holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and
avenge our blood?" (Revelation 6:10 NIV). This second woe
is God's specific answer to their prayer. Notice the answer takes
the form of releasing four powerful fallen angels who have been
bound for centuries at the river Euphrates. But note also the
sovereign control of God. It is a precisely-timed event. They
are released at the very "hour and day and month and year"
that God had long ago predetermined. No human or demonic power
could change that timing! This is all linked with the Euphrates river,
once the ancient boundary between the East and the West. The Euphrates
flows out of the mountains of Armenia down through the present
lands of Iraq and Iran and on to the Persian Gulf. In the ancient
world it formed the eastern boundary of the Roman Empire. The
Romans lived in constant fear of the Parthian hordes who lived
on the other side of the river. Earlier, Israel had also lived
in fear of invasion from across the Euphrates because Assyria
and Babylonia both had sent their armies down from the north across
the river and into Israel.

Many of the commentators have claimed that this army of two
hundred million is entirely composed of soldiers from the Eastern
nations -- India, China, Japan, Indochina, etc. It is true that
the reference to the Euphrates river indicates that a barrier
is being removed so the Eastern armies can come into the west,
but I do not believe that all two hundred million of these come
from the East. The commentators have failed to note that there
are four angels released who control this event. Four is the number
of worldwide human government. It is a picture of the four directions
of earth -- north, south, east and west -- and these soldiers
come from all of these directions. It would be almost impossible
for any one nation today, or even several of them (such as in
NATO), to field an army of that size. No army on earth today has
much more than five hundred thousand troops. To field an army
of two hundred million would be logistically impossible, even
for China. But they do not all come from the east. They come from
all directions, and they will gather to one place. In Chapter
16 that place is named for us. There we find the Euphrates river
appearing again and this time it is linked with the Mount of Megiddo
in Israel, or Armageddon. So this is the first glimpse we have
in Revelation of the great armies of earth that will come from
all directions, east, south, north and west, and gather in the
plain of Megiddo in the land of Israel for the great battle of
the last days. This gathering of armies is further described by
symbols, in Verses 17-19:

The horses and riders I saw in my vision looked like this:
Their breastplates were fiery red, dark blue, and yellow as sulfur
[or brimstone]. The heads of the horses resembled the heads
of lions, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke and sulfur.
A third of mankind was killed by the three plagues of fire, smoke
and sulfur that came out of their mouths. The power of the horses
was in their mouths and in their tails; for their tails were like
snakes, having heads with which they inflict injury. (Revelation
9:17-19 NIV)

What can this be? Let us remember that we are reading an ancient
book in which are described events that are still future to us.
What we have here is modern warfare described in military terms
of John's day. "Breastplates" of various colors suggest
armored chariots -- i.e. tanks, missile launchers, and other vehicles
of war, that are camouflaged with various colors (or perhaps are
identified by national colors, since this is a conglomeration
of armies coming together). "Lion's mouths" that are
spouting fire and belching smoke suggest cannons and mortars --
even nuclear missiles -- killing with fire, radiation, and poisonous
gases. Tails like snakes that do injury perhaps describe modern
helicopters, gunships, which have a rotor at the tail where also
machine-guns and missile launchers are located. This may even
depict weapons not yet invented. I recognize it is difficult to
say precisely what all this means, but it is obvious that here
we have a great military campaign, which results in monstrous
slaughter of enormous scope. We are gradually being informed of
what is about to happen, and we will see other pictures of these
same events as the book continues to unfold. The final scene under
the sixth trumpet is the reaction of mankind to these strange
and disastrous things.

The rest of mankind that were not killed by these plagues
still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not
stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone
and wood -- idols that cannot see or hear or walk. Nor did they
repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality
or their thefts. (Revelation 9:20-21 NIV)

Observe that worshiping demons is put first. That is the explanation
for this lack of repentance. Here are people who have believed
a Satanic lie. It is what Paul calls, in Second Thessalonians,
"a strong delusion" (2 Thessalonians 2:11 KJV), a lie
from the devil. They have believed this, and therefore they are
rendered finally unable to repent. It is because they have begun,
unknowingly perhaps and innocently, to worship demons. We see
something of this in the rise of Satanism in our own day. The
authorities of this area are very disturbed about the attempts
that we hear of to kidnap children. They are concerned not only
because they want to protect children, but because they fear that
these are attempts on the part of Satanists to obtain children
to offer as living sacrifices. That has been proved to have happened
in several instances.

The worship of demons finds its expression, we are told here,
in idols. These are probably in the form of medals, ritual objects
or figures, perhaps even crystals, that people wear around their
necks. There is a touch of sarcasm here in the words, "idols
that cannot see or hear or walk." These things do nothing
for people no matter what they think about them. This superstitious
submission to strange teaching is characteristic of the last days.
These people would not change their lifestyles even under these
terrible judgments. They continued their murders, (which probably
includes abortion). It does not look like we are going to make
much progress in this terrible, murderous aborting of babies that
takes place so frequently today. They also continued their "magic
arts." Actually the word here is an interesting one. It is
pharmakeia, from which we get our word "pharmacy."
It really means drugs.

The awful drug traffic of today is unexplainable, is it not?
Why can we not get rid of it? Surely you have asked yourself,
why do people do this! In the face of the widespread warnings
that we hear today, and the revelation of how damaging this can
be, why do people do drugs? Why do they ever start? It is because
drugs is a form of magic art. It is a part of the sorceries of
these days, yet to be seen in even worse forms. Their sexual immoralities
also continue. Again, we have been subjected to an explosion of
this in anticipation of this coming time. Also, of course, thefts,
i.e. embezzlement's and attempts to steal money from trusted funds.
These fill our papers today, all fore gleams that God has given
us for the days to come. We have not yet reached these days, but
these events are warning us of the nature of things yet to come.
Even after the awful bloodbath of a nuclear war, where one out
of three die, still there will be no change of heart.

In the face of this obdurate refusal to change, we must ask,
"Why judgment?" What is judgment for if it is so ineffectual
in producing change? Let us not forget that the book of Revelation
has already told us that millions will repent. Let us not ignore
that "great multitude which no man can number" (Revelation
7:9 KJV) from every tribe and nation and language who washed their
robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. They come
out of the great tribulation and appear before the throne of God.
They have repented in the midst of judgments. They have believed,
and have received the grace of God.

But here is a great number that judgment has not affected in
that way. Judgment does not make them listen because their hearts
are hardened. They are the impenitent -- unable to believe. They
are no longer able to heed because they have refused the grace
of God. That is what produces this kind of hardness of heart.
God never expected to convert the world through judgment. He knows
that well. What judgment does is to make us listen to grace. It
makes us take seriously what God is offering as the way of escape.
In these terrible judgments we see the power, the majesty, the
might, the inescapability of God, and we must ask ourselves, "What
can I do to be saved?" That is the effect of judgment. "What
shall I do? How can I escape? Is there no way out?" What
God then provides to those who feel their peril is a message of
grace. It is not when judgment threatens that we turn to God.
It is when we see a suffering love that gives itself for us, that
bears the hurt and agony and pain -- it is that that breaks and
melts our proud hearts, silences our excuses and opens the door
to salvation. But then to reject that grace when it is clearly
understood to be offered, to turn one's back upon it, is to render
the heart unassailable and to make repentance impossible. That
is the message of Hebrews 6.

That is where this passage leaves us and I want to leave it
at that point. I have been writing a commentary on the book of
Hebrews and I have been struck by a question that the writer asks
in the second chapter which is really the theme of Hebrews He
asks, "How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?"
(Hebrews 2:3 KJV). How can you escape if you neglect the offer
of the grace of God? God does not want to judge men. He does not
like judgment. We saw that last week. But that is all that is
left for those who reject the way of escape which the grace and
mercy of God supplies. We have been singing this morning, quite
properly, of the mercy and the grace of God. We sang:

And when I think that God his Son not sparing,
Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in,
That on the cross, his burden gladly bearing,
He bled and died, to take away my sin;
Then sings my soul, my Savior, God, to thee,
How great thou art; how great thou art!"

That is incredible, is it not? We see how wonderfully tender
and gracious God is, how much he wants people to be delivered
from judgment, but in the end we must ask, "How shall we
escape if we neglect so great salvation?" There may be some
among us here who have been coming for months, and years, and
have never received the grace of God through receiving Jesus Christ
as Lord and Savior. In the face of judgments such as these that
are even now present in our land, judgments that speak eloquently
of far worse yet to come, we must face this question, "How
shall I escape if I neglect so great salvation?" I leave
that question in your mind and heart for you personally to answer
in your own life.

Prayer: Father, we are sobered by these revelations
of that which is yet to come upon the earth. We see something
of your holiness, your power, your majesty, your displeasure with
human sin. And yet, always against the background of that, we
see your wonderful grace that offers a way of escape. We pray
for all who are here this morning, that they will have opened
their hearts to the saving grace of Jesus. We pray that life from
above may be imparted to them; that they will know the wonderful
promises of grace to fill our life with joy and put songs in our
mouths and make us rejoice in a destiny quite different from what
we see described here. Help us now and strengthen us to live in
the light of these revelations this very day. We ask in Jesus'
name. Amen.